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Sorry, HP printer ink is $8,000 per gallon, not $800.

I would know more about HP if I thought it was safe to buy HP products.

$17 for 24 refills

If I understand right, Final Fantasy is now 360-exclusive. So much for Final Fantasy. :\ There's no way Square-Enix would go Xbox exclusive unless the 360 manages to gain significantly more than 1% market share in S-E's home country. It's just begging to cut out half your consumer base. However, note that in the article I just linked to it states that a separate company, run by one of the creators of Final Fantasy, will be making at least two RPGs for the 360. It doesn't state whether or not they will be exclusive but I assume they will be. That may be the source of all the FF is now Xbox exclusive rumors I've been hearing for awhile.

Not only the music industry, even the UK newspaper's are facing tough competition from the BBC's news website.

What about South Korea?

It turned out to be in the 6 figure range per gallon. (Although this story says its up to 8 kbucks per gallon) and there was this story about a US woman suing Hewlett Packard, saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date.

Also, some people will want to do their own thing on their homecomputer but often have to print two or three pictures in order to get a good one. Many people are not skilled at getting the color, contrast and cropping right and they don't want the hassle. So for them getting prints the traditional way may be the best option.

Printer ink can be purchased by the gallon starting at about 100 bucks per gallon, depending on the usual factors

Other Comparisons (shamelessly stolen)

• Diet Snapple
  16 oz $1.29 ....... $10.32 per gallon
• Lipton Ice Tea
  16 oz $1.19 ...........$9.52 per gallon
• Gatorade
  20 oz $1.59 ..... $10.17 per gallon
• Ocean Spray
  16 oz $1.25 . $10.00 per gallon
• Brake Fluid
  12 oz $3.15 . $33.60 per gallon
• Vick's Nyquil
  6 oz $8.35 ... $178.13 per gallon
• Pepto Bismol
  4 oz $3.85 .... $123.20 per gallon
• Whiteout
  7 oz $1.39 ........ .. $25.42 per gallon
• Scope
  1.5 oz $0.99 .$84.48 per gallon
• Evian water
  9 oz $1.49..........$21.19 per gallon?!

Agreed, managers must know enough to realize their limitations. Not only was the recently fired HP CEO Carly Fiorina not able to realize her limitations, for example, she did not think her limitations mattered.

People say that the printer division is HP's last profitable division. However, it is not the printers that make money, but selling ink for $8,000 per gallon (mostly cheap solvent, bought in tank car loads).

If that is correct, HP is not a real business, but one that depends on taking advantage of its customers to make money.

If that is true, then Carly Fiorina was not a businesswoman at all, but merely able to give the appearance of competence. And that, in turn, means that people who write for the business press are completely incompetent, too.

Similarly, often the business press claims that Microsoft is a successful company. But would Microsoft have been successful if it had not had a very unusual situation in which it was able to arrange a virtual monopoly by breaking the antitrust law? Someone who had a monopoly on water, for example, could make Bill Gates look like a poor man in a week.

However, I have some disagreement with what you said. You said, "Translation: you don't have to know how to do everything or how everything works as long as you know that your knowledge is limited and someone else more technically minded probably should be listened to."

The problem with that is the manager must have enough technical knowledge to understand very well who has more technical knowledge than he, and who can therefore be trusted. Typically, that's a lot more technical knowledge than what people mean when they say "you don't have to know how to do everything or how everything works".

"I guess now we know why printers are HP's last profitable division."

And, as soon as ink can no longer be sold for $8,000 per gallon (mostly cheap solvent, bought in tank car loads), HP will go out of business? (Also see this analysis about Epson ink: Comparison of ink in bulk to prefilled cartridges.)

If so, then HP has not been a real business for a long time, but has been merely piggybacking on the ignorance of its customers. And that means that Carly Fiorina was not a businesswoman at all, but merely good at giving the appearance of competence. And that, in turn means that people who write for the business press are completely incompetent, too.

Slashdotters should have a mission in the world, to provide at least minimal education to their friends and family and neighbors and political representatives:

Don't buy anything from a spam email.

Buy ink refills from Costco and refill Canon cartridges. (See this comment: 54 cents per refill.)

I think you should qualify Korea further - South or North Korea. Anyway, I think both North and South Korea is a bad example for your statement - where the normal people cant afford a computer.

South Korea is actually one of the most connected place on earth. Read here :South Korea: Broadband blues

North Korea, on the other hand, is a very closed and restricted place, where internet access is likely controlled - even if it is affordable.

Not that easy. A is already taken by a popular TV series.. The same series actually consumed the letter T. B is unusable, as it used to be associated with a failed operating system. C is, obviously, a popular programming language. Now, we could settle for D, but I think it could be confusing for chemists, who use it to describe chiral isomers. E would be a bad idea, as e- is one of the most hated prefixes of the present day. F obviously if out of question, as it stands for a chemical element, and G would create too many lame slashdot jokes related to clitoris. I could actually go this way through the whole ASCII table, but I'm too lazy for it.

As someone who teaches Cyberlaw and runs a program on law and technology, I'd urge you to consider broadening your horizons a bit, and to focus on practical rather than theoretical discussions. As relevant as IP law is to the technology industries, it is only one small part of the whole picture. Contract law, corporate structure finance (yes, even in this post-bubble era!), privacy law and especially international law are also crucial subjects to learn.

I'd echo the sentiments of those who said to take a look at casebooks and other law school texts in a local library. You can also go to the sources for IP law: the U.S. Copyright Office and Patent and Trademark Office have some good basic info, as does the Federal Trade Commission on privacy rules. This site has a good list of info. on doing e-business throughout the world. Finally, for an introduction to Internet-related business legal issues, you can always find my book in a local library.

Finally, you'll need to decide if you actually want to be a lawyer. Law school is rather expensive these days, even for state schools, and the loan burden for many of our students is severe. Feel free to e-mail me if you'd like to ponder this further. {Professor Jonathan Ezor}